James Comey went to the deputy Attorney General to request more resources for his Russia probe. And then he was gone. Update!

So does this mean I'm not going to get those additional resources?

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

Days before he was fired, James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, asked the Justice Department for a significant increase in resources for the bureau’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the presidential election, according to four congressional officials, including Senator Richard J. Durbin. 

Mr. Comey made his appeal to Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, who also wrote the Justice Department’s memo that was used to justify the firing of Mr. Comey this week, the officials said. 

“I’m told that as soon as Rosenstein arrived, there was a request for additional resources for the investigation and that a few days afterwards, he was sacked,” said Mr. Durbin, a Democrat of Illinois. “I think the Comey operation was breathing down the neck of the Trump campaign and their operatives, and this was an effort to slow down the investigation.”

Wait, you mean James Comey WASN'T fired because he was mean to Hillary?

Now of course the Justice Department is denying that Comey asked for additional resources.

You know, the Justice Department that is now run by that paragon of truthfulness Jeff Beauregard Sessions.

Another reason trotted out by White House aides was that Comey refused to provide Trump a preview of the testimony he was planning to give before the Senate last week:

Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein had wanted a heads-up from Comey about what he would say at a May 3 hearing about his handling of an investigation into former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. 

When Comey refused, Trump and his aides considered that an act of insubordination and it was one of the catalysts to Trump’s decision this week to fire the FBI director, the officials said. 

"It gave the impression that he was no longer capable of carrying out his duties," one official said. Previews of congressional testimony to superiors are generally considered courteous.

It should also be remembered that Comey HAD been scheduled to appear before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence this week, however now there is confusion as to whether the acting director, Andrew McCabe, or Comey will take the stand, depending on who you ask.

(Personally I would assume that the Democrats want to hear testimony from Comey now more than ever.)

In the meantime the calls for a special persecutor are being shouted from the rooftops, while the Republicans attempt to deny the need for one:

McConnell dismissed calls by Democrats — joined by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) — for the appointment of a special prosecutor or independent commission to investigate Russia’s influence in the Trump campaign, which the FBI is now investigating. 

He argued that the Senate Intelligence Committee is already reviewing the matter, as is the FBI, and empowering another investigative authority could hamper their work. 

“Today we’ll do doubt hear calls for a new investigation, which could only serve to impede the current work being done to not only discover what the Russians may have done [but] also to let this body and the national security community develop countermeasures and war-fighting doctrine to see that it doesn’t occur again,” McConnell said. 

Methinks that someone doth protest too much.

There are also currently some fairly well known names being floated as possible replacements for Comey.

Sources: @ChrisChristie, Rudy Giuliani, @TGowdySC, and Ray Kelly on FBI director short list. pic.twitter.com/NcTcOMh8WK

— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 10, 2017

Trey "Benghazi" Gowdy, Rudy "9-11, 9-11, 9-11" Giuliani, Chris "Bridge-gate" Christie, or Ray "Stop and Frisk" Kelly. Oh yeah, those are certainly the folks I would choose to conduct a nonpartisan investigation into a Republican president's possible criminal ties to Russia.

Of course all of this might be academic as some Democrats are signaling that they will not confirm ANY new FBI Director candidates until they get a special prosecutor assigned to this case.

More popcorn anyone?

Update: Comey's letter to his friends and fellow agents.

READ: James Comey's farewell letter to friends and agents https://t.co/d1GuPWRREQ pic.twitter.com/UCNbZl3b1v

— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) May 11, 2017

Update 2: WaPo is now reporting, based on thirty sources, the REAL reasons why Trump fired James Comey: 

Trump was angry that Comey would not support his baseless claim that President Barack Obama had his campaign offices wiretapped. He was frustrated when Comey revealed in Senate testimony the breadth of the counterintelligence investigation into Russia’s effort to sway the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And he fumed that Comey was giving too much attention to the Russia probe and not enough to investigating leaks to journalists.

So essentially the reasons are the reasons that most of us assumed when we first heard that Comey was fired. 

This story is not going away, and it is clear that Trump has made a VERY serious miscalculation.

If only we would have listened.

New study may prove to be the death knell for the Pebble Mine Project in Alaska. If fish could applaud they would be doing so.

Bristol Bay

Courtesy of the Juneau Empire: 

A government report indicates a large-scale copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region could have devastating effects on the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery and adversely affect Alaska Natives, whose culture is built around salmon. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday released its final assessment of the impact of mining in the Bristol Bay region. Its findings are similar to those of an earlier draft report, concluding that, depending on the size of the mine, up to 94 miles of streams would be destroyed in the mere build-out of the project, including losses of between 5 and 22 miles of streams known to provide salmon spawning and rearing habitat. Up to 5,350 acres of wetlands, ponds and lakes also would be lost due to the mine footprint. 

The report concludes that “large-scale mining in the Bristol Bay watershed poses significant near- and long-term risk to salmon, wildlife and Native Alaska cultures,” EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran said in a conference call with reporters. 

The battle over the proposed Pebble Mine has been waged for years and extended beyond Alaska’s borders, with environmental activists like actor Robert Redford opposing development. Multinational jewelers have said they won’t use minerals mined from the Alaska prospect, and pension fund managers from California and New York City last year asked London-based Rio Tinto, a shareholder of mine owner Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., to divest, a request Rio Tinto said it planned to consider. 

This battle over the Pebble Mine has been waging now for over five years, and it may never have even began if Sarah Palin had not interfered in the the early initiative process: 

The two sides spent more than $10 million -- unprecedented for such efforts in Alaska -- and throughout it all, the state's highly popular first-term governor, Sarah Palin, held back. Alaska law forbids state officials from using state resources to advocate on ballot initiatives. 

Then, six days before the Aug. 26 vote, with the race looking close, Palin broke her silence. Asked about the initiative at a news conference, she invoked "personal privilege" to give an opinion. "Let me take my governor's hat off for just a minute here and tell you, personally, Prop. 4 -- I vote no on that," she said. "I have all the confidence in the world that [the Department of Environmental Conservation] and our [Department of Natural Resources] have great, very stringent regulations and policies already in place. We're going to make sure that mines operate only safely, soundly." 

Palin's comments rocked the contest. Within a day, the pro-mining coalition fighting the referendum had placed full-page ads with a picture of the governor and the word "NO." The initiative went down to defeat, with 57 percent of voters rejecting it. 

Three days later, Palin was named Republican Sen. John McCain's running mate, throwing Alaska into a media frenzy. But the fallout has lingered from an episode that may stand as one of the most consequential in Palin's 21-month tenure. The state ethics panel is examining whether her comments violated the law against state advocacy on ballot measures; it had already ruled that a state Web site was improperly slanted toward mining interests.

So one of Palin's last acts before being tapped by McCain was to help start a war up here between the fishermen and the supporters of the Pebble Mine. And people wonder why Alaskans dislike her so much.

Anyhow this new report might be the nail that we have been searching for to finally close the coffin on the Pebble Mine for good.

At least I certainly hope so.